Leon A. Makielski, “Oat Field,” Oil on Canvas, c. 1908

painting

A light grayish-blue sky filled with purple-centered clouds –some with distinctive, puffy white edges– takes up the top half of the canvas. The lower half of the scene shows a field of golden harvest stubble. Shocks of oats are scattered around in the immediate foreground, getting smaller as they recede in the distance. Beyond the oat field, a large red barn dwarfs a farmhouse; the house and barn sit behind a screen of tall, narrow, closed-branch trees, likely poplars. A few scattered rounded bushes grow among the trees. The view is of the shaded side of the bushes and trees. Most of the green foliage is quite dark, but the leaves grow lighter at the edges. Beyond this, and more distant, is a range of mountains painted in purples, blues, and grays.

Dimensions:
6″ x 9″
Leon A. Makielski
(1885-1974)
More about the artist

Leon A. Makielski was a student at the Art Institute of Chicago in the early 1900s. After winning a John Quincy Adams Traveling Scholarship in 1908 from the AIC, he went to Paris to study at the Julian and Grande Chamiere Academies. He later lived in Detroit where he won several prizes at the Detroit Institute of Arts. By 1933, he was teaching architecture at the University of Michigan, and classes in portrait painting at the Detroit School of Applied Arts. In the early 1960s, Makielski visited the Oregon Library Gallery to reminisce about the Eagle’s Nest Camp and his days as a student there. When the Library opened in 1908, the first exhibit in the upstairs art room was Leon Makielski’s show of 100 paintings. The Oregon Woman’s Council purchased one, for $35.00 and gave it to the newly opened library. This would have been the first piece of our permanent collection. Six Makielski paintings were featured in the 4th Annual Exhibit of the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony in the Oregon Public Library Gallery, held October 13-18, 1913.

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